If you hope to make it through the day without losing all hope in humanity, you may not wish to read the following thoughts on Ray and Janay Rice from our old friend from The Spearhead, W.F. Price.

I know people instinctively and reflexively sympathize with the victim of a brutal attack, but …

Yeah, I’m giving you all one more chance to back out of this right now, because we all know that nothing good is going to come after that “but.”

… there comes a time when one has to ask whether or not the victim bears some responsibility for putting herself in this situation. Does Janay really think that will be the last time Rice gives her a beatdown? And even if she does, what statement is she making in marrying a man willing to treat her like that?

The statement is clear: she thinks the violence is a reasonable tradeoff for whatever she gets in return for her relationship, whether it’s sexual gratification, status or money. …

But feminists would have us believe that domestic violence is a patriarchal imposition, despite the fact that married women in patriarchal families suffer the lowest rates of domestic violence of all partnered women in the United States.

In fact, study after study after study after study find that domestic violence rates tend to be highest amongst those with traditional – that is, patriarchal – values.

Let’s let Price continue, as we haven’t even gotten to the worst stuff yet.

Maybe feminists think the patriarchy has secretly implanted little chips in women’s brains that lead them to seek out men who will beat them up.

Somehow, instead of choosing granola-crunching lesbians, these women make a beeline for musclebound athletes, beefy bikers and ghetto thugs.

How many different types of bigotry can he fit into one sentence? I count three.

But maybe it isn’t the patriarchy. Maybe there’s something about female sexuality that defies feminist ideals. Perhaps it’s kind of a chaotic, anarchic thing that doesn’t pay attention to pronouncements about what’s right and proper.

Maybe, just maybe, the only way to really cut down on intimate violence would be to restrict women’s sexual freedom.

Oh, but Price stops just short of explicitly advocating that men should be put in charge of women’s sexuality.

Would I advocate for that? No. As adults, women should make their own decisions in that regard. However, to blame men in general for the results of women’s sexual decisions is absolutely unacceptable.

As terrible as Price’s post is, the comments from The Spearhead’s regulars are, as usual, even worse.

According to the fellow who calls himself TFH,

The biggest error that Western Civ ever made was assuming that women could be ‘adults’. …

The woman’s brain-gina interface is obsolete. She is programmed to get gina tingles from men who were suited to excel in the world of pre-historic times, while she is programmed to be revulsed by the man who would have fared poorly then (the introverted STEM guys of today).

One cannot fully understand why women write love letters to serial killers and continue to get back with violent boyfriends, without also realizing the hate that women have for tech nerds, and how there is an obsessive push to divert tech money to women (i.e. they hate that money is appearing in the hands of men their gina does not tingle for).

Again, the brain-gina interface of women is obsolete. That is the most complete explanation.

Back in The Spearhead’s comment section, meanwhile, Eric J Schlegel trots out some evo-psych just-so stories to buttress a similarly backwards conclusion:

Women get the ‘gina tingle from the alpha male because, from an evolutionary perspective, those are the genes that contribute to survival. Trouble is, those same sociopathic thugs are not at all any use as protector and provider, so she takes the results of her selective breeding, along with her black eye, and finds a beta schlub provider to help raise them. … [P]erhaps others here have similar stories where female aquaintances chose assholes in their hormoned youth, only to settle for a nice guy with 3-4 thug bastards in tow. Women such as the one you’ve talked about here are those who have not overcome their animal instincts, every bit as much as the men who put them in ICU. The authority that a man used to have over his daughters as well as his sons used to act as somewhat of a check on this social dynamic, but we all know what happened to that…

I think it’s safe to say that if you ever run across a dude who refers to “‘ginas” instead of “vaginas” you should run as far away as your legs will take you.

Someone called Stoltz concludes

This is what happens when a society tells women they are equal – no,no – superior – to men. Movies and TV shows that show a female character acting like a hellish b*tch, goings around kicking everyone’s rearends. … Feminist and a feminist-backed government who tell women they have no responsibilities, and all the rights, so they believe they can do whatever they please to whoever (of course, the ‘whoever’ are men).

Meanwhile, another commenter suggests that the only solution is “to repeal the civil rights laws that prevent people from keeping ‘those’ people out.” Yet another declares that “Ray Rice triggers my gaydar pretty hard” and suggests that Janay “looks like a tranny.”

Price himself shows up with some comments even worse than his post, arguing that abused women stick with their abusers

because it feels good. Having a dominant man is a pleasurable feeling for a lot of women. It’s like a shot of dope for a heroin addict, who knows that he’s taking a big risk each time he injects the drug into his arm, but can’t stop himself from doing so anyway.

Just a couple days ago there was a power outage where I live due to some construction/maintenance in the area. I had to go to a nearby hotspot to do some work online and so did a few neighbors. One of my neighbors was an ordinary, middle-aged woman. She left her phone on speaker for some reason, and she got a call from her man that I heard as clear as day. He called, and then when she didn’t pick up immediately I could hear him yelling at her in a threatening manner for not answering promptly. Then, the guy demanded she get power of attorney over her mother so he could drain the old lady’s bank account, and when she raised reasonable objections to it he was insistent and angry. I was just shaking my head, but this mild-mannered, very plain 40-something white lady looked positively radiant upon receiving this kind of violent attention from her thuggish, scumbag boyfriend.

Comments

I want to tell young girls that if they have priorities that make them stay with an abuser, then their priorities are just wrong. In the wrongest possible way, and they should work on changing them. But this is judgemental, of course.

It is judgmental, but dude sometimes I will be judgmental. Many people will prioritize the wellbeing of their pets over themselves. How many people do you know who will take their pet to the vet whenever the animal seems unwell, but when they are themselves sick they just handwave it and won’t see a doctor? I know lots of these folks. Then there are the ones who prioritize their pets at the bottom rung, and don’t seem to comprehend that animals can feel pain and they think that another case of beer is worth more than a vet visit.

I will judge the hell out of those people. They are acting correctly according to their priorities. Their priorities are immoral. I’m not obligated to stand by when someone is acting on immoral priorities and say nothing.

Now, the priorities that put people into abusive relationships and cause them to stay are not immoral. In fact, abusers frequently prey on our best instincts, our instincts to care about people besides ourselves, and our instincts for self-preservation. That doesn’t mean that a person in abusive relationship cannot, or should not, reorganize the priority list. It just means that you can’t do that reorganization on another person’s behalf. And that’s the source of the frustration.

My Dad is an abusive alcoholic, and there are lots of reasons why my Mum has stayed with him but the main one is probably because it is really fucking hard to get an abuser to leave you alone. She has kicked him out, phoned the police and gotten Non Molestation orders but doing any of those things don’t actually mean he will leave her alone. When she kicks him out he just hangs around the house waiting for someone to leave so he can get back in or he will beg, say how sorry he is and pretend that he is sick. If that doesn’t work he will go to her work and wait outside for her, once he went to her Dad, who was very sick and died a few months later, to cry about all the horrible imaginary things my mum has done on him. When we phone the police they take him out of the house and then let him go so our only choice is to lock ourselves in the house or phone them every time he turns up.
The last time my Mum got a Non Molestation order was a few years ago when I started to fight with him, because of that he stayed out of the house for about two years, and every night of those two years he phoned and screamed at her, if she hung up he would just keep ringing until she answered if she disconnected the phone, he would come down and scream through the window so what she ended up doing was wrapping the phone in a blanket so he could scream all night without bothering her.
Eventually he got back into the house because his mum got so sick of him screaming down the phone every night that she kicked him out, he promised us that he would stop drinking and went to a six week detox place before coming back. Since then we have kicked him out dozens of times and he has been back to the detox thing twice but every time he comes back and begs, cries or threatens his way into the house. We have to live our lives and a lot of the time its easier to do that with him in the house being his horrible self, than it is to constantly make sure he’s not outside when you leave in case he tries to get in or for my mum to worry every time she goes to work that he will turn up and she will lose her job.

This is crazy. We’re feminizing this game, and its a man’s game. If we keep feminizing this game, we’re going to ruin it. Keep chickifying this game, we’re going to ruin it. It’s going to become something it was never intended to be. And so many men now, executives in the league and sports drive-bys are in a race to see who can be the most politically correct feminist guy. It’s comical to watch this.

Hi everyone at whtm longtime lurker here but this thread is so intense that I just wanted to finally comment. All my sympathy to everyine who has been a victim of domestic abuse. I am not a football fan so I do not know much about Ray Rice. In my own life I had a boyfriend back in my college days who was very verbally abusive. It was a horrible 3 years for me. I had at the time such low self esteem and self worth that I continued to remain in the relationship because I thought I deserved the abuse and no one else was going to love me. I figured at least I had a boyfriend rather than being all alone. Society puts a lot of pressure on women to be coupled. It is all in the movies, romance books, etc. But I eventually received counseling to work on my low self worth issues. Each day I try to be a better person and try to accept and love myself. I guess no one can love us if we really do not love and accept ourselves. Anyway I do not want to ramble on but this thread hit home since I know some women who were victims of physical abuse. Thank you whtm for all the comments and I finally decided to delurk. I have one request to all on this blog, I am now looking forward to receiving a welcome packet.

Apparently, a man’s game has to include the players beating up women outside of it.

I never understood what’s so manly about beating up women anyway. Aren’t women supposed to be those fragile little flowers who are incapable of matching a manly man physically? Where’s the accomplishment in hitting someone weaker?

Then again, these are the same people who make apologia for child abuse and bullying, so maybe manliness for them IS hurting weaker people.

Oh, and I’ve mentioned this before, but have you asked Paul Elam if you can have Janet Bloomfield’s PR job at A Voice for Mannheim Steamroller? Even though you’re an annoying troll with auto-pilot responses, you’re still far ahead of Janet Bloomfield in the “spin” game.

Thank you again Policy of Madness, you’ve been very helpful to me, I really appreciate it. I need to think about this stuff, it all feels kind of “unnatural” to me to think like this. I need to read more.

Translation: We can keep teaching these guys to be aggressive and keep being surprised when they can’t control their aggression off the fields. We can keep the game so rough that they end their careers with tons of damages from years of injuries. We can keep letting them hit in the head and then be surprised by what it does to their brains. Because if we changed things in a way that would benefit everyone, it would “feminizing the game.”

Fuck Rush. Ray Rice is responsible for his behavior. Still, it’s also worth examining the effects that football has on its players, particularly with regards to the constant head injuries that these guys receive, so that we can prevent further suffering and violence down the line.

Basically, it seems pretty obvious that there’s something about football that frequently leads it players to be violent off the field, and there’s some rethinking that we need to do about how we play the game. It also couldn’t hurt to actually keep a better eye on them and make sure that they’re recovering properly from head injuries and that they’re not having anger management problems.

Wow! Price really took those comments out of context. He completely failed to mention that those were made in the context of people who stayed in abusive relationships out of fear. Let’s all marvel at the intellectual dishonesty on display there.

Ah, WTF Price noticed this story. LOL. Such an assortment of sad, strange little men over there, with no empathy for anybody, busily NOT helping male victims of abuse either.

How on earth does someone with a (presumably functioning) heart read this thread and people’s innumerable heartbreaking stories of abuse and come out with: ‘oh we need to tear down the choices of these women, it’s the only way to help them’ as a response.

Why are you so frightened of cats? Why, deep down, does the feeeeeline upset you, Mr. Price? Did Lady and the Tramp seriously traumatize you as a child? Or maybe it was “Dragon” in The Secret of NIMH?

I’m asking this as a man with a cat. Yeah, there are a lot of us.

My post on Ray Rice that argued that women who stay in abusive relationships are partly responsible for subsequent violence, in the same way that alligator wrestlers and snake handlers are partly responsible when they are bitten, had some of the ladies fanning themselves and making exclamations of horror.

This is called victim-blaming and is pretty much reprehensible to all decent human beings, no matter how many dumb animal anecdotes you vomit on it. Thanks for reminding us why you’re a horrible person. Also, to comparing the choice a man makes to hit a woman to a wild animal defending itself is astronomically stupid.

So let me get this straight: it’s OK to judge people who have dysfunctional relationships with their pets, but not those who have dysfunctional relationships with other people?
No, you didn’t get that straight. Learn reading comprehension, and also learn empathy. Of course, both are impossible for you.

One of the few aspects of Lovecraft’s personality that is not disturbing is (was?) his deep and sincere affection for cats. I don’t have any furrinati overlords myself, but I would not entirely trust anyone who dislikes them.

How on earth does someone with a (presumably functioning) heart read this thread and people’s innumerable heartbreaking stories of abuse and come out with: ‘oh we need to tear down the choices of these women, it’s the only way to help them’ as a response.

Also, how would transferring “those women” from an abusive relationship with one man to an abusive relationship with a different man improve their situation? Not allowing people to have control over who they have relationships with and how those relationships work is inherently abusive, and that’s before we even get to the question of how the men in those relationships would go about achieving and reinforcing the dominance and control over women that they crave.

Price is not the calm voice of reason in the MRA movement that comparing him to Elam and others would suggest. His mask slips easily. He frequently fails to fact-check, too. He tries to throw out enough evidence to convince the audience he’s a nice guy at heart, but then comes the tell. Boy howdy.

If I’m to be part of a cat lady audience, then I must have a cat avatar!

Also, abused people are not responsible for their own abuse. You know who is responsible for abuse? The abusers. If abused women are to be compared to snake handlers or alligator wrestlers who cry when they are bitten, that implies that the abusers have no rational thought. That would follow that they should be kept in cages so they can’t hurt humans. Did Price really think that analogy through?

The “study after study after study after study” that you cited did not state, or conclude that intimate partner violence is highest in patriarchal o traditional marriages. NOT EVEN ONCE!

Study 1 concludes:
Despite wide variations in the prevalence of IPV, many factors affected IPV risk similarly across sites. Secondary education, high SES, and formal marriage offered protection, while alcohol abuse, cohabitation, young age, attitudes supportive of wife beating, having outside sexual partners, experiencing childhood abuse, growing up with domestic violence, and experiencing or perpetrating other forms of violence in adulthood, increased the risk of IPV. The strength of the association was greatest when both the woman and her partner had the risk factor.

Where is the statement that traditional marriages lead to greater IPV? So, you lied!

Study 2 concludes:
The relationship between patriarchal beliefs and attitudes toward violence was examined. Agreement with the statement “some women like to be hit” was equal for both men and women.

The study did not indicate how common this belief was, or whether it was promoted in patriarchal households. Again, you lied!

Study 3 concludes:
This paper proposes a conceptual model for gender differences in outcomes of intimate partner violence (IPV) victimization, broadly conceived as including physical, sexual, emotional, and coercive control forms of abuse, as well as stalking.

The purpose of the study was to see gender differences (i.e. what does IPV does to males vs females). It did not go out to examine the prevalence of IPV among traditional vs nontraditional families.

Male behaviours commonly associated with ‘tradi- tional’ masculinity [32], such as having many sexual partners, controlling female behaviour, and fighting other men, are strongly associated with IPV across all sites. Women having children from another partnership, or, in some settings, working when her partner does not, also appear to increase her risk of IPV. These results highlight the need to engage with men and women to challenge norms around what is expected of, and deemed acceptable behaviour for both men and women. Promising research from Brazil, South Africa and Uganda highlights the potential impacts on partner violence, of programmes that tackle models of masculi- nity and address issues of gender norms [33].

Emphasis mine. So yeah, patriarchal societies lead to greater IPV. This is exactly what the study concluded.

Intimate partner violence is a universal public health and public safety problem. Its disproportionate infliction on women may be influenced by patriarchal beliefs that dismiss violence against the female partner as a socially rationalized act. This is a secondary analysis of a domestic violence survey conducted in a Spanish-speaking community. The relationship between patriarchal beliefs and attitudes toward violence was examined. Agreement with the statement “some women like to be hit” was equal for both men and women. This response was also associated with having known someone abused. Sharing a common language, culture, or heritage can also mean sharing common beliefs, attitudes, and experiences. A researcher, educator, or responder who is familiar with these matters can hold a deeper appreciation of a victim’s community construct.

The idea that “women like to be hit” is a patriarchal idea. The study wasn’t looking at frequency, it was looking at whether or not holding patriarchal beliefs leads to a greater acceptance of IPV. The study apparently concludes it does.

Damn paywalls. Study #3 is also behind a paywall, but this study also says exactly what David says it does:

Results: The literature reviewed suggests these negative effects are not equally distributed by gender—studies indicate that women suffer disproportionately from IPV, especially in terms of injuries, fear, and posttraumatic stress. The review also finds that women experience greater decreases in relationship satisfaction as a result of IPV. Conclusions: Our review largely supports the contention of feminist theory that gender matters—but we would go further and say that what really matters is power; gender matters because it is so highly correlated with power. We propose that, due to cultural factors that typically ascribe higher status to the male gender, and men’s greater size and strength compared to women (on average), women are more likely than men to encounter contextual factors that disempower them and put them in situations—such as sexual abuse—that increase their risk of poor outcomes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)

Again, emphasis mine. The bolded sentence is pretty much the definition if patriarchy. In a patriarchal society, men are afforded more power than women, thus making women more vulnerable to IPV. This means, of course, that in patriarchal societies women are more at risk for IPV.

Current research has established links between endorsement of traditional male role norms and the perpetration of intimate partner violence. However, research has not identified the cognitive and affective pathways that link masculinity ideology and beliefs about intimate partner violence. The current study examined fear of intimacy, ambivalent sexism, and relationship dominance as potential mediating factors of the relationship between masculinity ideology and the acceptance of myths about partner violence in a community sample of 101 American men. Multiple regression analyses indicated that, while sexism and dominance did partially mediate the proposed relationship, fear of intimacy did not. Research and clinical implications are discussed.

So, basically, they’re looking at what factors, exactly, contribute to the linking of masculine ideology and myths of IPV (that is, people who are more likely to hold ideology that puts “masculine” above “feminine” [i.e., patriarchy] are also more likely to believe in myths about IPV). They analyzed three traits, “fear of intimacy,” “ambivalent sexism,” and “relationship dominance” (three traits that make up masculine ideology) and found that just two of those (“ambivalent sexism” and “relationship dominance”) were linked. So, no, it’s not just, as you put it, Dave:

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